World Migratory Bird Day (WMBD) is an annual awareness-raising campaign highlighting the need for the conservation of migratory birds and their habitats. It has a global outreach and is an effective tool to help raise global awareness of the threats faced by migratory birds, their ecological importance, and the need for international cooperation to conserve them.

 

 

This year the theme of World Migratory Bird Day is “Protect Birds: Be the Solution to Plastic Pollution!” and will put the spotlight on the impact of plastic pollution on migratory birds and their habitats. Every year people around the world take action and organize public events such as bird festivals, education programmes, exhibitions and bird-watching excursions to celebrate WMBD. With an annual production of more than 300 million tonnes, plastic is one of the most widely used materials in the world. The plastic is used for its main purpose for only a moment compared with its lifecycle of 20 to 500 years. Lightweight and designed to last, the discarded pieces are easily transported to ecosystems through the forces of nature causing serious threats to migratory species around the world. An estimated 8 million tonnes of plastic waste enter the world’s oceans each year. To make matters worse, plastic does not simply dissolve. Broken down into small particles by water, sunlight and wind, it often leads to lethal cases of ingestion and entanglement.

 

 

On this occasion organizing an event to help address plastic pollution and celebrate migratory birds, in this way, individual events can be shared with others around the world and help inspire them to take action too and reducing the use of plastic and cleaning up the waste that is currently contaminating our natural environments is essential to migratory bird conservation.